


All There Is

by deerntheheadlights



Series: Sky High Short Scenes [1]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Car Accidents, F/M, Fluff, Hospitals, Injury, Layla and Warren love each other, Minor Injuries, Multi, Post-Canon, a little bit sad, warren and layla are together like they should be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:29:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerntheheadlights/pseuds/deerntheheadlights
Summary: Warren Peace was supposed to meet his girlfriend and their best friends for dinner, but he doesn't make it to the restaurant. After he gets into an accident it's up to his friends to look out for him.
Relationships: Warren Peace & Layla Williams, Warren Peace/Layla Williams
Series: Sky High Short Scenes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730488
Kudos: 49





	All There Is

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am writing Sky High fic in 2020; putting my English degree to good use. I haven't written fanfic since high school so I hope this is okay. I'd like this to be a part of a larger series of Sky High characters post-highschool but not necessarily being heroes.

He remembers hearing the car horn, the sound of metal against metal. Flying. Falling. Then, nothing. 

When he woke up, he was lying flat on his back, and staring directly at a woman he didn’t recognize. 

He tried to sit up but the pain in his chest and the woman’s hand gently pushing him back to the group stopped him before he even had time to think about trying to stand. 

“Don’t move,” she said. “You were in an accident.”   
Accident…   
“My name is Laura, I’m a nurse. I was at the restaurant across the street when I heard the accident. Thank God for outside seating…” She had her hands on either side of his head now, keeping it steady.   
“Sorry,” his helmet was still on and her voice sounded muffled, “I have to keep your neck still. I don’t want you moving around, you could have injured your back.”  
“What’s your name?” she asked him. 

He could hear sirens in the distance. It must have been a hell of an accident. The pain in his chest made it hard to speak, or breathe, or think really. 

“Warren” he managed to get his name out between stifled breaths.   
“Okay, Warren. Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine; the ambulance is almost here.” Her voice was calming but he could sense the hesitation in it. The quieting of the sirens and slamming of doors announced the ambulance’s arrival.   
Laura spoke to the paramedics; she used a bunch of medical terms that Warren recognized from TV but whose meanings he was unaware.   
His head was starting to hurt.

“The car ran the red light; crashed right int him. It’s like the other driver didn’t even try to stop,” she explained.

A man’s voice exclaimed, “I saw the whole thing. Motorcycle dude went flying and hit the ground. Hard. He just kinda laid there, man. I thought the guy was dead for sure until he rolled onto his back. And then she,” Warren could see an arm pointed down at Laura who was still holding his head securely in place, “ran over and started checking his pulse and stuff.”  
One of the paramedics asked about the other driver and the same witness gestured towards a man in his thirties who was sitting on the curb a few feet away from where Warren lay. He had blood on his brow and his hands shook like he was freezing despite the July evening warmth surrounding the scene. “We’ll let the other crew check him out,” the paramedic said. “This guy is much more serious.” 

He paramedic kneeled at Warren’s side; he could see him in his periphery. An older man, old enough to be his dad. He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of scissors while his partner moved to Warren’s head and began to ask him questions. 

“I’m Jake, my partner’s name is David. Do you know what your name is?” He said and shined a flashlight into Warren’s eyes. 

“Warren,” he responded. His voice was shaky and his eyes were blurred. “Warren Peace.” 

“Alright Warren, how old are you?” 

“23.” 

“Excellent,” he said. “My partner is gonna have to cut your shirt so that we can check you out, okay?” He didn’t wait for a response.   
“Do you have pain anywhere?” Jake was feeling around his chest and accepted the wincing as an affirmative. 

“My chest, and my head.” Staring straight up the sky started to spin, his chest began feeling tighter than it had. “Cant. Breathe.” Warren barely managed to get the words out of his mouth. 

“Okay hang on, we’re gonna get your helmet off and give you something for the pain, alright. Stay with me, Warren.”   
Laura moved aside to let the EMT take over. “Do you have pain in your neck or your back?” he asked. He slowly pulled the helmet off of Warren’s head and his long hair fell onto the street.   
“Keep still, okay? We’re gonna get you onto the ambulance and to the hospital.”   
His head was pounding, his ears started to ring. A police officer arrived and asked the medic if he could ride in with them to the hospital. He had some questions for Warren.   
He must have blacked out for a moment because he woke up again inside of the ambulance to the sound of the officer calling his name. 

“Hey man stay awake, okay? No sleeping right now, stay with us.”

“Do you remember what happened? Where were you headed?” 

Warren couldn’t remember anything before waking up on the street. Only the song he was listening to and then the feeling of his body slamming hard onto the asphalt.   
“Is there someone we can call for you?” 

His eyes closed again for a moment and the paramedic called out his name, “Warren. Warren. Hey. Hey, we’re almost there.”   
“Is there somebody we can call for you?” the officer asked again.   
Warren could barely get the name out of his mouth. His breathe was sharp and painful; he was crying, he realized  
.   
Layla  
“Layla. Call Layla. Please,” and out again. 

The melting ice in her glass was creating a ring of water on the table. She watched the droplets slide down the side of the cup and the carbonation bubble on the surface. Layla had been at the restaurant for almost an hour now. She only half listened to the conversation her friends were having around the table. 

Where is he… 

She knew that Warren hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic about the little meetup they had planned, but it wasn’t like him to be over an hour late. She checked her phone for the 10th time in as many minutes and Magenta watched her face fall a little bit and sigh.

“I’m sure he’s just running late,” she said trying to reassure her friend. “He wouldn’t just ditch us.” 

“Yeah,” Layla replied, “I know.” She looked around at her friends, all together for the first time in almost a year, and gave a quick smile before returning her attention to the puddle her cup was creating. 

The table was quiet for a moment. Something was wrong, they could all feel it. The first note of Layla’s ringtone made them all jump. She looked down and saw a number she didn’t recognize and answered before the third ring could finish. 

“Hello? Warren??” She sounded frantic. Ethan thought it looked like she was about to cry. 

She gasped and almost spilled her drink on the ground as she hurriedly stood up from her seat and began to gather her things haphazardly. “Which hospital?” she said, biting her lip to suppress the tears she knew were inevitable but was hoping to avoid.

“Okay. I’m on my way. Thank you,” and hung up. All eyes were on her as she put on her jacket, it was actually Warren’s jacket but she had grown attached to it over the years and had claimed it as her own despite his protests. The air had vacated the room all at once, stopping her dead in her tracks.   
“Warren was in an accident. I have to go.” Tears were welling up in her eyes and for a split second, she was worried that in a moment there would be waterways running down her cheeks. 

Magenta stood up, “I’m driving, you can’t drive like this.” Layla didn’t waste any time arguing with her and they hurried out of the restaurant and into Magenta’s car. The boys followed closely behind as they made their way towards the hospital. 

“Is it serious..?” she didn’t need to look over at Layla to know that she was crying softly into her sleeves. 

“I don’t know. The police officer on the phone just said that he was stable, but I don’t know.” She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Mag…” They were quiet for a while, the sun had set and the city lights from the overpass seemed to sparkle, if she didn’t have a ton of weight sitting on her chest Layla would have said something about how beautiful.   
Magenta reached over and took Layla’s hand. “Does his mom know?”   
“Oh God, his mom. I have to call his mom. She isn’t even in the country right now. And his sister, she’s got the baby and,” the tears began again before she could finish her sentence.   
“He has to be okay, Mag. He has to…” 

This time when Warren woke up he was not in the back of an ambulance, but in a bed. The bright white ceiling light nearly blinded him as he opened his eyes. Sound began again and he could hear machines beeping, people talking hurriedly, and his own heart beating hard and fast in his ears. 

“Warren? I’m Dr. Park, do you know where you are?”

“Hos..pi..tal” speaking barely louder than a whisper.

“Perfect. You’re in the emergency department, they just brought you in. We’re going to run some tests and get some scans, you had a pretty bad accident. Are you in pain?”   
He tried to shake his head but the stiff plastic collar around his neck wouldn’t let him. “Yes.” He winced as, again, someone was feeling around on his chest.   
Broken ribs… He thought, he was not a stranger to injury but he had never been in an accident this bad before.   
“We notified your family, your girlfriend is on her way, okay? Stay calm, we’re going to get you all fixed up.” 

Girlfriend…LAYLA. He was crying again. 

The same officer from the ambulance pulled up a chair next to him after the doctors finished their initial checks. “Is there anything you remember? He asked. “Anything at all?”

“Supposed to meet my friends, didn’t make it.” His breathing was shallow, and he couldn’t get his thought in line. “I never saw the car, just heard the horn.” 

“Okay, hang in there, man. I’ll come back and ask you some more questions a little later.”

The doctors came back and someone said something about an X-Ray, but Warren couldn’t think straight enough to process what any of it meant. The pain medication made his head cloudy and his mouth dry. He had no idea how much time had passed but he knew Layla would be panicking by now. 

She was panicking but trying not to let it show too much as she called Warren’s sister, Yvette, who said she would call their mother herself and be on the next flight out. Yvette had always been especially kind to Layla. She was almost 10 years older than Warren and had pretty much raised him herself while he was in high school and their mother did hero work abroad. She was one of the few people who didn’t see his father when she looked at him, and she was happy when he found that again in Layla.   
They pulled into the parking lot of the emergency department and the five of them went quickly into the lobby and over to the desk. 

“Hi my name is Layla Williams I’m looking for Warren Peace he was in an accident they called about 20 minutes ago,” she was speaking so fast that her words seemed to all mix together and she needed to catch her breath by the end of the sentence. The woman behind the desk typed something into her keyboard and examined the screen for a second before turning her look back to Layla.

“He’s in radiology right now and it’ll probably be a while, I’ll have you wait in the relative's area and the doctor will come to update you when there’s more information.” A security guard came around the counter and told Layla to follow him. They walked through a set of automatic doors the guard needed to swipe a card to get through and passed a dozen doors before arriving at one with a placard that read “Relatives Room.” 

She was crying again before she could even reach a chair. “I always hated that bike!” She was walking around in small circles in the small room while her friends sat and stared at her, having never seen her display so much negative emotion before now.   
“I hated it in high school when he got it, I hated it the first time he crashed it, and I hate it even more now! He’s so stubborn, he can’t just get a safe, four-door car like a normal guy. No! Big Bad Peace just has to ride a motorcycle as if people don’t think he’s tough enough as it is!” 

Magenta stood up and wrapped her arms around her, leading her to a chair and making her sit down. Layla’s face was flush, she had a little bit of makeup smeared on her cheek that Magenta wiped away with a tissue after handing one to Layla. Time felt like it had come to a standstill. They had been sitting in the little waiting room for three-quarters of an hour. Yvette had called Layla to tell her she would be on a plane in 2 hours and would be there in 5, she asked if the doctors had said anything yet and sighed with frustration when Layla said that no one had told them much of anything yet. They said goodbye and Will put a hand on Layla’s shoulder to comfort her.

Things between them hadn’t been too weird after they broke up, and Will didn’t harbor any resentment towards either Layla or Warren when they got together. Layla and Will had maybe a picture-perfect couple on the outside, but Warren and Layla were like soulmates. It’s like they were made for each other, they connected on a level that Will hoped he would connect with someone on someday. Will Stronghold, son of the Commander and Jetstream, had been dumped for Warren Peace, son of villain Baron Battle and hero Mei Peace, but he never held a grudge. He was happy Layla was happy, and he liked that Warren had learned to smile a little bit more. 

The door opened and a man and a woman in scrubs and lab coats came into the room.   
“Hello, are you here for Mr. Peace?” the woman asked. 

“He’s okay?” Layla asked less like a question and more like a plea. Will held one of her hands and Magenta held the other.

“He’s stable, he’s definitely got a concussion and possible fracture in his right arm. They’re bringing him back from the MRI now and we’ll be able to tell you when we know more,”   
The doctor’s face was even, if there was something seriously wrong her face didn’t betray it. 

“He started to become agitated, which is normal in patients who have hit their heads as hard as he did—his helmet had a 4-inch crack in the side of it from when he hit the ground—but it meant that we needed to sedate him to keep him calm,”

The last thing we need today is Warren accidentally burning the entire hospital to the ground because he’s confused Layla thought to herself. 

“You can come to see him for a few minutes now, but he’s going to be very sedated if not completely unconscious, okay?”   
They stood, “thank you, doctor,” Layla said quietly as she and the rest of her friends followed Warren’s doctor out of the room and through another set of large metal doors. The emergency department smelled like disinfectant and the constant monitor beeping scared Layla a little bit. She was terrified of what they would find when they got to Warren’s bed.   
They stopped at one of the cubicles with the curtain closed, “He’ll know you’re there,” the doctor explained, “but he’s not going to really have a lot of conversation in him, okay? Just be prepared and try not to be too upset, it could upset him, and we can’t have his blood pressure too raised before we get test results back.”   
Layla nodded, and the doctor opened the curtain for her. 

She gasped and put her hands over her mouth. The tears started immediately. 

He was laying flat on his back with a plastic collar around his neck so he couldn’t move. He had IV drips in his arm, his chest was covered in sensors for the heart monitors, and he had a temporary plaster cast on his right arm. His nose was bloody, and his unbroken arm was laid across his chest which was already starting to bruise in some spots. Layla thought that he looked so small lying there like that; he had never looked so helpless before, so vulnerable. He was asleep, but he was breathing and alive. 

She walked into the small cubicle and over to the side of the bed. She carefully brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face and softly ran her fingers through his hair; there was blood in it.   
The others couldn’t help but feel like voyeurs, as if they had just witnessed something that was so intimate, they shouldn’t have been privy to. Layla took Warren’s hand and kissed his forehead. She took the seat the officer had placed in the room earlier and sat next to Warren, his hand in hers. He almost looked peaceful; he wasn’t usually a peaceful sleeper. He usually had nightmares and only really slept a few hours each night. She quietly prayed that he wasn’t in a nightmare that he couldn’t get out of right now.   
Magenta held onto Layla’s shoulders and hugged her. Will, Zach, and Ethan couldn’t stop looking at Warren’s face. He was the toughest guy any of them had ever met. Peace seemed invincible. But there he was, unconscious in a hospital bed with a broken arm and a chest bruised black and blue. 

Layla held his hand up to her lips and kissed it lightly. “You’re so stupid,” she whispered into the back of his hand. She sniffled a bit and rubbed her eyes, she was certain that she had mascara covering both of her eyes like a raccoon at that point and couldn’t be bothered to care about it anymore. She stroked his hand with her thumb before she felt his hand squeeze hers softly. 

“Don’t cry” he said barely above a whisper. His eyes opened just a little bit and he looked like he was in pain. 

Layla placed her hand on his forehead and stroked his hair softly, “shhhhhh…Go back to sleep, it’s okay…” He gave her half a smile and closed his eyes again. It had always seemed strange to Will that Layla could placate Peace so easily, the guy who would literally burst into flames if he got too angry could be lulled to sleep by Will’s own best friend and one-time girlfriend, someone who radiated light and positive energy. A nurse came in a few minutes later to check on him, she told Layla that his vitals seemed okay and asked if she’d want her to call Warren’s parents. Layla shuddered a little at the word “parents.” 

“That’s okay,” she said quietly not wanting to wake him up. “I talked to his sister and she’s flying here now from California. His mom is in Beijing, his sister is calling her. Satisfied, the nurse left them again. 

“This is definitely not how I thought this little party was gonna go,” Zach said. The others nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything. After about an hour, Zach and Ethan left; they both had to work in the morning, and it was already well into the night.

****   
The doctors had come around and done more tests on Warren and taken him for a second set of x-rays. Layla waited in the room with Will and Magenta—who had both absolutely refused to leave her by herself— for the tests to finish and Warren to be returned to them. Will offered to go back to Layla and Warren’s apartment and pick up anything they would need from home, Layla said that it was okay and that she would figure it out once the doctor had come back and given them another update. It was past 1 o’clock in the morning.   
“I don’t want you to be here alone all night,” Magenta said looking over at Layla who looked exhausted. “Did you call your mom?” She asked.   
“My parents…My parents don’t like Warren much…” she looked down at the floor and bit the nail on her thumb. 

“Not because of his parents or anything,” she clarified. “Or, not entirely because of his parents… I think they always saw me ending up with someone more… Well, like Will, I guess. My parents are relaxed about a lot of things, but I don’t think that they like that I’m living with the pyrokinetic son of a supervillain who has flames tattooed on his wrists and..rides a motorcycle…”   
She looked sad, Magenta took her hand again and said “It doesn’t matter if they like him or not, they wouldn’t want you to go through this alone. This would be traumatic for anyone, dating Baron Battle’s kid or not, Layla.” 

They could hear the wheels of a gurney coming around the corner and new Warren was close. When they brought him back into the room, he was more awake than when he had left. He smiled at Layla and held his hand out to her, she happily took it and stood up to kiss his forehead. The doctor explained that he didn’t have any life-threatening injuries, but he did have a bad concussion, 3 broken ribs, a broken arm, 2 cuts that needed stitches, and he’d be bruised all over for a while. They’d be admitting him into the hospital for at least another day or two to monitor his concussion and help manage pain, or which Peace was feeling a lot. The doctor told them someone would be coming by to take him to a private room in a little while, Layla and Warren thanked her, and she left. 

Warren looked at Layla, examining her face for a while. She was still holding his hand and if he noticed Will and Magenta in the room, he didn’t say anything about it. “Are you mad at me?” he asked her.  
The question took them all by surprise. 

“What? No, of course not. I’m just glad that you’re okay.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry; you didn’t do anything wrong, Warren.” She squeezed his hand a little bit tighter and he looked at her like he was about to cry, the analgesia and the shock taking him closer and closer to his breaking point. Layla had only seen Warren cry twice: once when his niece was born and he held her for the first time, and once when he got the news that his father had died in prison. She wiped his eyes for him and pulled the blanket up higher on his chest. 

“Your sister will be here soon; she’s flying here right now. I’m not sure about your mom yet, though…”

“Okay…” he said softly. “You don’t have to stay here all night. You look tired.” He looked and sounded like he’d been through hell. His eyes were red, and his throat was scratchy. There was still some blood in the ends of his hair. Will handed Layla a small cup with water and a straw to give to Warren.

“I’m not going anywhere, Will is going to get my stuff from home and I’m staying right here with you, no arguments, Peace.” He gave half of a laugh at hearing her call him “Peace,” which she only ever did if she was really trying to get her way.

He scanned the room and met eyes with Will and Magenta, “what are you two nurses or something?”  
“No,” Magenta rolled her eyes, she’d always liked Warren and she liked that he and Layla were so good for each other. “We’re clearly here for Layla, not you.”   
“How are you feeling?” Will asked. 

“Like I got hit by a car,” Warren replied, typical dead pan tone not at all damaged in the accident. He tried to sit up farther but stopped and winced when the pain got to be too much. He hated his friends seeing him so vulnerable. He especially hated Layla to see him like this, he’s supposed to be her protector, her hero, but he’s too weak to even sit up on his own.   
He examined the cast on his forearm, the nurse told him that they would be doing the final cast in the morning and that he’d probably have it on for 4 weeks to heal the fracture. “Fuck.” he mumbled to himself.  
Layla looked back at him, watching him fidget with the end of the cast, “hm? What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”  
“Yeah, some. It’s fine. The nurse said my tattoo made it, so it’s fine” he flashed Layla a quick smile and she couldn’t help but smile back. 

***********  
Will and Magenta decided to go together to Warren and Layla’s apartment so that Magenta could pick up Layla’s car from the restaurant and bring it back to the hospital for her. Layla gave them her keys and Warren gave them a look that said, “if you go through my stuff, I will roast you alive and I will not feel bad about it.”   
It was only a 20-minute drive from the hospital to the apartment. Neither Magenta nor Will had ever been there before—they both spent a lot of time away, Will with super work and Magenta on tour— and they were both understandably curious to see how Layla and Warren lived. It was a top floor apartment in a tall brick building on a street lined with trees. Their front door was green and there was a brown welcome mat in front of it. 

“Home-y,” Magenta said, “not really the kind of place I’d expect Peace to live though.” 

“Yeah seriously, Layla definitely did the decorating.” 

Will used Layla’s key to open the front door, they stepped in and turned on the light. It was bigger than they’d expected it to be. The far side of the apartment had large windows with large white curtains. Their couch was grey, and they had a glass coffee table with video games on it; Warren’s, they assumed, since Layla didn’t seem like the video game type. Their living room was attached to the kitchen which had white countertops and a ledge with bar stools. Their kitchen table was small and had two chairs on either said of it. There were two coffee cups in the sink and attached to the refrigerator with a magnet was a strip of photos from a photo booth; they looked really happy; Warren was smiling in every picture.   
As expected, the apartment was full of plants, some that Will and Magenta weren’t convinced Layla hadn’t invented herself, all green and in a state of perpetual bloom. Their cat, Thursday, followed Will and Magenta as they walked through the apartment. They knew what the probable punishment for snooping was, but they figured since Warren was mostly incapacitated that they could risk it just as a little bit. Will looked at the pictures hanging on the wall while Magenta thumbed through Warren’s CDs and records. 

“Peace has good taste,” she said, mildly impressed. They had always connected on a different level than the others, on a being different level. That, and both being able to speak Mandarin meant being able to talk about the others in front of them instead of being their backs, like bad friends. 

“Yeah come look at this,” Will was pointed at a small framed picture sitting on the mantle in the living room. It looked old, probably 20 years at least. There was a man, and a woman that Will recognized as Warren’s mom. They were on a beach somewhere with 3 children smiling widely for the camera. Magenta felt a tinge of sadness when she looked at the image, Warren, the youngest of the 3 kids, couldn’t have been more than 3 years old in the picture. His dad would be taken to prison the following year, and his oldest sibling, a brother named Johnathan, would die not long after. 

They made their way from the living room down the hall towards the bedrooms. The apartment had three bedrooms and Magenta and Will didn’t know which one Layla and Warren shared, so they tried all the doors. One of the rooms held objects clearly belonging to Layla. The ceiling was covered in vines, and the whole room smelled like roses. The other had a distinctly Warren feeling about it. There was a guitar against one wall, a desk with a computer, large bookshelves, and art supplies. They closed to the doors and went into the third and final room. 

The walls were painted a dark blue color. Two dressed stood side by side next to each other on one wall next to a large closet and a large bed with white sheets and more pillows than anyone could reasonably need sat in the middle of the back wall in front of another set of large windows with grey curtains.

“Go find their toothbrushes and stuff,” Magenta directed. “I’ll get their clothes; I think Peace would actually kill you if you opened his dresser.” 

“Like he wouldn’t kill you?” he responded, almost indignant. 

“No, Layla loves me, and he loves Layla. So, I’m safe. Layla loves you too, but I think Peace would make the exception.” 

“Whatever,” mumbling to himself he made his way into their bathroom.

Magenta found a duffle bag in their closet and started opening drawers, looking for at least 2 days of clothes for Layla and Warren. She was unsurprised to find that Peace’s clothes were almost exclusively black. Their closet was split in half, black and white on one side, the other in full technicolor. She finished packing their bag and, after Will added the items he had collected from their bathroom, they fed Thursday, picked up Layla’s car from where she had left it at the restaurant, and went back to the hospital.

It was past 3 o’clock in the morning when Will and Magenta got back to the hospital. Warren had been moved upstairs to a private room where he would be spending the next couple of days. They rode the elevator up 6 floors, and navigated the winding ICU hallways, and finally made it to the door labeled ‘Peace.’   
He was asleep when they arrived. Someone, presumably Layla, had put his hair up for him and he almost looked like himself again. Layla was awake and sitting in a chair talking quietly to a tall thin woman with long black hair whom they had never met before. Layla smiled at them when they came in and took the bags from Will, giving him and Magenta hugs and many thanks. 

“This is Warren’s older sister, Yvette. This is Will and Magenta,” Layla said, gesturing to the woman. The three of them exchanged introductions and cursory handshakes. Her phone rang — “Sorry, it’s Mei” she said looking to Layla, “I should take this,” and she stepped out of the room.

“Warren’s mom,” Layla responded to the question Will hadn’t even had the chance to ask. “She’s in Beijing, doing hero work right now. Consulting on something, I don’t remember the specifics.” 

Magenta looked over at Warren who even asleep looked uncomfortable, “how is he doing?”

“He’s alright, they gave him more pain killers. I think he’s more upset than he wants to admit but… I’m just glad he’s okay.” 

“Yeah, me too. If he had died, I think I would have had to kill him for hurting you,” Magenta said with a laugh. Layla laughed too for the first time all day. 

Yvette returned to the room, one hand covering her phone,   
“Mei wants to know if Warren wants her to come. I don’t want to tell her yes or no for him. Should we ask him?” She was looking to Layla for her opinion knowing Warren would most likely go along with whatever Layla thought was right. 

Layla pressed her hand lightly against Warren’s shoulder to wake him, “Warren, honey, your mom wants to talk to you.” He took a deep breath, took the phone from his sister, and had a quick conversation with his mother in tired, accented, Mandarin, which he really only spoke when he didn’t want other people to be able to listen in on what he was saying.

“He told her not to come,” Magenta whispered to Layla. 

“What?”

“He said not to come, that it was fine, and that it’s not worth flying all the way from China to come here when he’s fine and will be out of the hospital in a few days,” she explained. 

Layla turned to Yvette who looked a little bit angry and a little bit relieved. The Peaces didn’t have a great family structure like the Strongholds or even like The Williams, Layla’s family. They weren’t close. Baron had been in prison for almost 20 years when he died 2 summers before. Johnathan, the oldest Peace boy, had died in a drowning accident when he was 12, and Mei Peace did so much extra hero work to make up for her husband’s crimes that she spent little time with her two surviving children. Yvette was 10 years older than Warren and took care of him all through high school and they lived together until he and Layla moved into an apartment together 2 years ago. She was relieved that her mother wouldn’t be coming home to create familial tension, but she was also disappointed that her mother only calls when there’s a death or an emergency.  
As the night crept slowly towards morning, Magenta and Will left to their own homes for the night, promising to return later in the morning with coffee. Layla hugged each of them and thanked them for staying with her. 

***********  
Layla stayed in Warren’s room with him all night doing less sleeping and more watching him sleep to make sure that he’s okay. She couldn’t figure out how someone so strong could look so broken. The last time she had seen Warren before the accident was in their kitchen that morning. They drank their coffee together like they always did before Layla had a meeting an environmental conservationist group and Warren had to go to work.   
He’d kept his job at the Paper Lantern since high school. Instead of spending the rest of his life trying to live up to his father’s legacy, or live it down, he opted out all-together. He didn’t want to be a villain, but he didn’t want to be a hero either; he was a waiter and a volunteer firefighter. He’d left for work that morning like any other morning with the understanding that he’d leave from the Paper Lantern to the restaurant that he was meeting Layla and the others at, but he never made it to dinner. 

Layla watched him sleep and thought about what it would have been like to lose him. She imagined it’d be the same kind of Earth crushing fear she’d experience when we first got the call that he’d been hurt, only worse, and permanent, and omnidirectional. She held his hand and realized that she never wanted to hold another hand as long as she lived; just him, only him. She pushed his hair back behind his ear and kissed his cheek. 

“I love you,” he told her, half asleep. 

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Comments and suggestions are always welcome and well-received. I'll write just about anything so if you're looking for something specific just let me know. Thanks for reading!


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